On Wednesday, April 18, members of the BPV met with ICMP director Kathryne Bomberger for a lunch at the organisation’s The Hague headquarters.

Ms Bombergen spoke to the journalists about the history of the organisation which was set up after the 1990s Balkan wars but has since taken on an international role in searching and identifying missing persons and lobbying for the rights of the people left behind.

ICMP is currently active in the Western Balkans, Iraq, Syria, Colombia and with smaller projects in Chile, Cyprus, el Slavador, Mexico, South Africa and Canada. Ms Bomberger spoke about the organisations plans to launch a new initiative for the identification of missing migrants which is hopefully to start soon, focusing on countries around the Mediterranean basin who face the bulk of the current migrant crisis.

After questions about the program and explanations of the ICMP’s program for DNA analysis and matching the journalists got a tour of the organisation’s new state of the art labratory where such matching is carried out.